A young woman in Danang City has been successfully introducing local specialties to foreign visitors through websites and food tours.
Le Ha Uyen, 26, from Hai Chau District, has just finished a four-year overseas study programme in Japan and a one-year course in Australia.
Le Ha Uyen was featured in the Weekend Weekly
Five years ago, she decided to set up a website introducing specialties in Danang to assist her foreign friends to find authentic dishes when they visited.
“When I was studying abroad, many of my foreign friends ask me what they should eat if they came to Danang. I searched the internet and found very few websites about the cuisine of Danang. The idea to launch a website about my hometown’s specialties came to me then,” said Uyen.
She started by finding detailed ingredient for specialties in Danang, the origins and meaning of such dishes and published it bilingually.
“Firstly I wanted to help fellow diners understand the meaning and value of the food. I have to make use of my English and take references from many other food websites to provide full and attractive introduction,” she said.
Mini-Pancakes (Bánh Khọt / Banh Căn) on Uyen’s site
Her website, danangcuisine.com, was made in late 2009 and has since attracted thousands of views a day, both from Vietnam and abroad.
This attention inspired her to spend more time on updating the site. Her relatives help out by taking photos to illustrate her writing. She and her older sister have even started making video clips showing how to make certain foods unique to Vietnam.
Her activities have caught the attention of several foreign media agencies. The Hong Kong-based Weekend Weekly published a 20-page article about tourism and food in Danang, spending two pages on an interview with Uyen.
Uyen was also featured in the New York Times recently, in a story entitled “In Da Nang, Vietnam, Looking to the Future”.
In order to meet rising demand, she has started a food tour of the city. A tour lasts for from two to four hours, allowing visitors to explore the culinary landscape of the area and taste foods they may never have tasted otherwise. Although food is the focus of the tours, it also gives her customers a chance to get a taste of the culture of this central coast city.
“I’m happy to contribute something to the development of tourism in my hometown,” she added.
Recently, she also opened cooking class and has opened a hostel, giving travellers a chance to swap stories about Danang, its food and its people.